Big budgets emerging for tiny products

Page Tools

When model Megan Gale launched a range of skin-care products
last summer, she drew on home-grown nanotechnology, using it in a
sun-screen gel called Invisible Zinc.

Gale said she was proud to have worked with an Australian
company on a product that was the first of its kind in the world.
Gale is a Perth girl, and Invisible Zinc came from the work of
researchers at Perth's Advanced Powder Technologies.

APT makes nano powders with applications from the cosmetic to
the industrial. Zinc oxide, known for its ability to absorb UV
light, is used in white sunscreens at micron level, but when shrunk
to nanometre level it becomes clear. APT's product ZinClear formed
the basis of Gale's Invisible Zinc, but the Perth company also has
products used in coatings to protect wood, plastics and textiles
from UV and microbial degradation.

Cosmetics are an excellent example of one of the widespread and
practical uses of nano technology.

Nano refers to minuscule lengths of about one billionth of a
metre. Working at nano scale atoms and molecules are manipulated in
new ways.

In Australia there are more than 60 research groups beavering
away on nanotech projects.

Mind-boggling amounts of money are being invested in
nanotechnology worldwide.

In the US the Bush Administration has committed $US3.5 billion
to a national nanotechnology program. A quarter of it is going to
the nano-bio area to improve biological and medical technology.

Europe is investing EUR3.2 billion ($A5.4 billion), and Japan a
similar amount.

Professor Matt Trau, director of the Nanotechnology and
Biomaterials Centre at the University of Queensland, says Asia is
gearing up rapidly for the nanotech race, with Thailand the latest
to join in.

He warns that in an era of globalisation, countries cannot
afford to fall behind. Our technologists are deeply concerned about
education's role in preparing a new generation to work at nanotech
tasks that straddle every industry.

Sydney company Ambri is tackling research in three fields:
biotechnology, nanotechnology and electronics, integrating them to
develop products for human medical diagnostics, including one of
the world's first true bio-nano devices.

Known as the ion channel switch, the tiny biosensor is the basis
of a diagnostic system, SensiDx, on trial in critical care units in
three Sydney hospitals. It provides results of blood tests in
minutes, dramatically accelerating treatment.

Ambri chief scientist Dr Bruce Cornell says the emergence of
nano-bio applications could dramatically change health care by
providing diagnosis and treatment outside the hospital system. This
would have significant implications for countries such as Australia
with ageing populations.

"They must recognise we need a different kind of training. We
require a common toolkit and a far better grounding in the
molecular sciences," Cornell says.

A study by the Australian Academy of Science found that although
Australian nanotechnology researchers are producing high-quality
work, Australia is not advancing its capabilities as quickly as the
rest of the world.

"Australia may fall further behind in the future unless
nanotechnology is maintained as a national research priority and
funded accordingly," the report says.